Technology and Science10 September, 20263 min read
Google Signs Deal To Buy 1 Million Carbon Credits From Mitti Labs Through 2030
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Google signs largest publicly announced rice-methane credit deal with Mitti Labs by 2030 Covers about 100,000 hectares of rice fields in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
Carbon credits deal
Google has agreed to purchase 1 million carbon credits from Indian climate startup Mitti Labs through 2030, in what the companies say is the largest publicly announced deal to date for credits generated from cutting methane emissions in rice farming. The four-year agreement will cover rice farms across the Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, reaching about 100,000 hectares at peak delivery, according to TechCrunch. Mitti Labs says the project will pay farmers to adopt practices that reduce how long rice fields remain flooded, cutting methane released during cultivation while also reducing water use.
Mitti Labs says the technique can cut methane emissions by about 50% and irrigation water use by about 40% without reducing crop yields, and it says its projects have saved more than 500 billion liters of water over the past two years. TechCrunch reports that financial terms were not disclosed, and that Google’s evaluation included scrutiny of Mitti Labs’ monitoring technology and visits to farms before the companies signed the agreement.
GeoAI monitoring
Mitti Labs’ GeoAI platform combines satellite radar imagery with field measurements to remotely track crop growth, soil moisture, and flooding across smallholder farms, TechCrunch reports. The platform uses synthetic aperture radar imagery from commercial and public satellites, with resolutions ranging from 50 centimeters to 10 meters, and Mitti also uses proprietary data collected in the field to train its AI models. The credits sold to Google can be issued under either Gold Standard or Isometric, two carbon-credit certification bodies, Laguarta said, and he added that the projects undergo independent third-party verification as part of the certification process before credits are issued.
TechCrunch also reports that Mitti Labs currently works with more than 100,000 farmers and aims to have millions of farmers by 2030, with the Google deal described as enabling further expansion. In a separate announcement, PR Newswire said the partnership would transition over 70,000 farmers to water and methane-savings irrigation practices across 100,000 hectares and aims to eliminate 3M tons of near-term warming impact (GWP20, equivalent to 1M tons of GWP100 impact).
Emissions pressure and expansion
The deal comes as Google faces the challenge of reaching its goal of going net-zero emissions by 2030 amid investing heavily in artificial-intelligence infrastructure, TechCrunch reports. TechCrunch says Google’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 grew 18% year-over-year to about 14.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, per its environmental report released in June. TechCrunch reports that Mitti Labs began talks with Google about a year ago, as the tech company explored adding methane-reduction projects to its carbon-credit portfolio, and that Google was drawn in part to the project’s water savings and Mitti Labs’ ability to operate at scale.
“Reducing methane from rice farming is one of the most powerful levers we have to slow near-term warming.”
PR Newswire quotes Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Google, saying, "Google is committed to finding the most promising solutions that neutralize warming across both the near and long term." PR Newswire also quotes Xavier Laguarta, co-founder at Mitti Labs, saying, "Reducing methane from rice farming is one of the most powerful levers we have to slow near-term warming," and it adds that the partnership is projected to conserve billions of gallons of water across critical regional basins.